Another One On Goals

I believe in goals. I believe they help you stay on track and push yourself to do better. It might be because I was a Cross Country runner throughout high school and our biggest competition was ourselves...or it might be because I LOVE the satisfaction that comes hand in hand with accomplishment, so I strive to give myself a reason to feel it. Either way, I always have goals. Long term, short term, temporary....

My first novel (tentatively called The Dying Process, or Confessions of an Immortal Heart) had its skeleton written mostly by the time I finished high school. In college, it got its ending, and now it's trying to find itself an agent. The goal of course for this, is to be published. The temporary goal is to see if I'll write a sequel...which I've been considering for about a month now..

My second novel...is still in the works. It was started for Tammy Henry (who also deserves a shout out here as being my first official reader for novel number one!!) because she gave me the little green book and a pack of pens to write with. I hand wrote over 80 pages that ended up getting typed up (and there are still more that I haven't....). But this one has me at a writers block, and has, sadly for a few years. I think about it from time to time (and the narrator has graced me with some vivid, vivid nightmares)...and I hope someday to also get this one published (this one is more on the adult side of the audience). So the goal for this, is to actually finish it....sooner rather than later.

My third novel...was started Thursday, February 24, 2011. In this time, the narrator has been circulating in my mind and shelled out 55 pages (15,420 words!). I am in awe of how much I've done. Seriously, I'm like a writing machine right now. Because of this, my goal is to write 10 pages a day. I told someone jokingly, that I'd have a novel written in about 20 days at this pace. Now I'm considering really trying that out. I know how the novel will end, I know the plot and characters...it's just tying one piece to the other in a coherent fashion. I read the first chapter to my sister the other morning, and she gave me the biggest compliment I could receive from her: "I think I'd actually read this one!" (See previous blogs for an explanation as to why this is huge.) 

This novel has the potential to be a series, which is daunting to even consider. Where I'm thinking of ending it however, it would at least need a sequel to tie up some loose ends that'll be floating in the reader's mind.

So primary goal for this novel: write 10 pages a day, or more (that way I'll have some slack off time the following day).

Today was supposed to be spent working on short stories and things like that because some competitions are wrapping up tomorrow for submissions....and...I'm thinking I don't have enough money right now. Plus there are several coming up March 15-16 and 31 that I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want to enter into. So...I think I'll hold off on the March 1st deadlines, focus all my energy on novel three, and in a week or so, hit the competitions hard. 

Wish me luck, and have an awesome day!

15 Minute Window

So, you've received your first rejection letter. No? Maybe your sixth? Maybe more?

Firstly, congrats on submitting to that many people. Hopefully you researched them, and decided that you were what they were looking for.  (Remember, personalize each query, each submission, if you didn't do this, this may be why you're staring at a shiney rejection letter)
Secondly, from the second you open that letter, you have what I consider the 15 Minute Window. In this time you're allowed to think:
What the f@#k?!
Oh man, I'm so sad!
Why didn't they like me?
Who cares I don't need them! I'll find someone better.

***********NOTICE*********

I said THINK these things. DO NOT, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER send a letter to the agent telling them this. Keep these things to yourself, or maybe a friend who is in person. Do NOT write a blog complaining, do not blow up your facebook wall, or your twitter if you have it. THINK these things. Or eat some ice cream. Maybe some oreos (which reminds me...I just ran out). Maybe even open a beer.

For these fifteen minutes, you're allowed to cry, to throw things, to punch your pillows, whatever you feel, (except attack the agent or editor who rejected you). Once that 15 Minute Window passes...

GET YOUR HEAD BACK IN THE GAME

Chances are you were rejected due to a flaw in your manuscript. If people you've only QUERIED are rejecting you, maybe you need to start with your pitch. Re-edit. If you've been re-editing for what feels like forever and you're sick of your story, take a break from it. Start something new. JUST. KEEP. WRITING. Keep the creativity flowing. Hey, maybe even turn the person you were rejected from into an evil monster with sixteen eyes.

Keep trucking along. At some point, re-edit everything: your synopsis, your query, your MANUSCRIPT. Then find other agencies, other contests, and resubmit.

Yes, it's sad you've been rejected (I'm openly weeping for you right now). But the rest of us have been cast away too (even if it was being the kid picked last for dodge ball).

Keep your head up. This is a long distance race, not a short sprint :)

Goals And Good News!

So, here's this:

       1) go to www.amazon.com/abna
       2) download the PDF list of second round entries for your category
       3) search for the author name from your submission form and the title of your entry

Look up the name Stephanie Schmidt and BAM you'll see my name. My novel has advanced to round two of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest.

Okay, now for the real blog.

When writing or submitting always have goals. If you start writing something, are you going to be okay with stopping in the middle to return? Are you aiming for this to be a longer story? A shorter story? Are you open for anything?
When submitting to an agent, what do you want? Will you be satisfied with the asking for a partial? Will you be okay with rejection? Are you shooting for the moon and asking for an agent during your first round of queries?
Now...competitions. Do you want an honorable mention? Are you prepared to not even hit the mark? Are you prepared to win?

Here are my thoughts on life:
Writing--When I start, I allow the story to take me wherever it wants to. If the narrator's voice is strong and I feel a lot of anger or passion behind it, I know I'm in for a little bit of a longer story. Although, if she cuts me off, I'm okay with that too. I can always go back and edit and add more.
Agents--I just went through my first round of queries. Going into it my GOAL was a request for a partial, which I received and am SUPER stoked about. Even if they reject me, it gives me reassurance I have some semblance of an idea as to what the hell I'm doing. It also took out the sting of the rejections I had received, and probably will receive. I met my goal, I can relax a little bit, refocus, and make a bigger goal, the all elusive actual AGENT and FULL request (of course, not in that order!)
Competitions--I recently entered into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest and my novel has advanced to round two! Out of close to 10,000 (that's what it gets capped at) entries, they selected 1,000 to move onto round two. My name, my work, has moved onto round two.

Here is why I'll get rejected:
Because my manuscript wasn't nearly as polished as it is now. Also, I was rushed for time (deadline was at midnight, I submitted at like 11:55pm, maybe even 11:58pm)...and forgot to de-color my text. (When I had written the novel, each chapter was a different color to help me go back to it/remember what the chapter was about).
BUT--I had a goal, that I would make it onto round two. And I did.

Now it's time to press on, and keep working for that agent!!

The Unreliable Narrator

I enjoy unreliable narrators in stories. As it is, you should never take what you're reading as the whole truth anyway (think of AVI's story, Nothing But The Truth. I thought that kid was a little punk ass anyway). Most people go into a story thinking, "Man, this character is totally telling the truth."

But everyone lies. Every single person walking this earth has told a lie. Hell, even my dog has probably told a lie. Chances are that your narrator (especially if the book is written in first person) has lied to you. Never, never, take a narrator completely at face value. (This is something I learned in my Shakespeare class in college.) Think of Romeo and Juliet, for example. She could have been the most epic rebound ever. They knew each other less than a day and were willing to die for each other? What kind of bullshit was that? Oh--and when Romeo met her, he was rebounding hardcore (poor lovesick pup), and was probably high. Have you really ever thought of this? Or do you typically just say "This story is so sad"? (Granted, I still think this story is EPIC, and I still think they loved each other despite these things.) All I'm saying is that when you read something, look into every sentence and think about what you're reading. (Is Bella really -that- into Edward, or is she enamored with the idea of living forever?)

My narrator in The Dying Process, I get the feeling is lying a lot. I feel like maybe she isn't as old as she's claiming, or that the world doesn't suck as much as she's leading me to believe (granted, it might...but I'm not sure). Can things really be -that bad-? She slips up throughout the story offering lies, half truths, full truths, which ties into the ending, I think. There are tid-bits that you have to catch as you go along. On principal though, even though I'm the one who wrote it, I think she's full of shit (even if I love her).

Some Writing

I don't really have anything to blog about today as I've been editing profusely...so...here is a piece I had published in Zephyr (and now that I reread it, it coulda used some work...but hey, it got published):

Porcelain

            I stood helplessly as I watched her turn to glass in front of me. It started at her eyes, frosting over to crystalline perfection, and spread throughout her body, shaking so violently I was afraid to place my hands around her. My biggest fear was watching her hit the floor and shatter. I wrapped my arms around her, trying to keep the cracks from breaking her beautiful figure, and worrying the entire time that the pressure I placed upon her would be what pushed her over the edge.

            She whispered into my neck words that ceased to end, and all I could do was remain a shoulder for her. She was falling, I could feel it, and she stopped reaching for my hand long before I was ready to stop trying to catch her.

            I’ve seen her broken like this once before, and I’d love to say that I was part of the reason she was put together. But just as this time, I am destroying her, last time I couldn’t break her fall.

            Love is a silly thing. You would get sucked into a rip tide, go out into a blizzard dressed in white, lay in the middle of a street with a semi truck barreling forward, you would do anything in the world as long as it made that person happy. You forget for awhile that you even exist, and all you see is her.

            If the person you love is weaker than you are, you go through endless measures to stay strong for them. You create barriers between them and the rest of the world so nothing can get through without your consent. You are the bouncer to the nightclub known as life, and you gladly take your position.

            Even still, no matter how closely you guard those doors, something can still happen, and here you are, watching the love of your life crashing. If life were an operating table, you would be the surgeon praying to God that your scalpel doesn’t slip. If life were a dream, you’d be beside her waking her before she started screaming out in pain.

            Rather than being something fixable, however, life tears her apart. She’s broken, breaking, something you would more than readily take from her, but it is hers to bear. All you can do, all I can do at this moment is be stable, be that person that she craves more than anyone else to fall apart in front of.

            I take her face in my hands feeling her hot tears soak through the creases in my fingers and it burns straight to my heart. She tells me she just can’t do this anymore and I try to keep from breaking for her. I’ve never known a hard life, yet she has already been through so much. The burning in my heart quickly escalates to anger at everyone and everything that has ever wronged her.

            If her eyes weren’t already upon me, every wall in the room would be broken beneath my fists, but I know my anger scares her so I keep myself in line. I wonder if she knows her sadness kills me. If looks could actually kill as everyone says they could, the sadness in her eyes would have stopped my heart the first time I met her.

            She has had everyone in her life leave her. Some made the decision themselves to leave, others had God make the decision for them. I swore to her that I would never leave her side, and I am still trying to reassure her this very moment. She refuses to hear me as I expected. She assumes that she will always be let down. Yet here I am, waiting for the day she’ll let me prove that I am not going anywhere.

            When her sobbing ebbs faintly, I release my hands from her face and wait for her reaction. If she starts falling again, I will catch her. Instead, she sits for a moment, probably contemplating running out the door as she usually does once this passes, but instead, she takes me, wraps my arms around her and embraces me.

            “Thank you.” Her words are like air to me and I breathe off of them. Just as I am attempting to keep her afloat, she sends me a life raft.

            Some day she will know that I will be the one to save her, until then, every time I watch her turn into something so breakable, I will be by her side. As long as she keeps running to me, I will not leave her.

            Once more I draw her into me, pretending that I am so much stronger than I actually am. And I just hold her, until I feel the glass peel away from her, leaving only scarred skin. Someday, I will be the one to save her. Today, I am just the one to bring her back from battle.

Editing

I believe in the editing process. (Man, I'm obsessed recently with "The ____ Process" see; my blog, the last blog post, the title of my novel...)

It's hard because I want to re-edit pieces I've had published in Zephyr, or something else...something that I just didn't think of at the time. Right now my manuscript is floating off in space with agents I've submitted to...and while they're reading where I was at at that point...I'm continuing to edit. Why? Because I feel like no matter what, until the piece is published, it can always get better. Always. Even if you've submitted it for revision, you yourself should be revising it...or at least that's how I feel (I could be wrong).

I really enjoy editing with Laura (my sister). She goes through and says "This sounds awkward, I don't like this...I still don't like this. Take this out? This is redundant." I really, really appreciate her honesty with me, and though sometimes it hurts, I know she's doing it to help make the piece, MY PIECE, better, and that, my friends, is the end goal--having the strongest thing you have to offer.

The Rejection Process

I'm slowly considering renaming my blog from The Submission Process to The Rejection Process. The goal this time around, though, was to have people ask for a partial, and one has, so I'm happy with round one of submissions, at least :) I will keep climbing this crazy ladder!

Rejection of any sort makes you doubt yourself. It puts those questions in your head, Am I not good enough? What's wrong with me? But in reality, I know nothing is wrong with me. I am a strong writer, though some areas may be weak, which is why my sister and I live edit almost nightly (except for right now because she has company down in Louisiana.) I can't remember whose blog I read, but they said something along the lines of: Being an agent and selecting who to represent is like walking into a huge bookstore. As you do so, you look at a few, and only end up buying one. It's the same with representing an author. My novel is one of those thousands of nameless books in that bookstore. It has to reach the right reader. This gives me perspective and it lessens each blow that says "I don't want you." It's nothing personal, it's just re-shelving me and my book.

When I first wrote this The Dying Process, it was SO weak. I still have an early draft if you'd ever like to read it and laugh with me. But it was the skeleton of something that is blowing my mind and making me consider starting a sequel. There are some parts that I've re-read and almost started crying because I can feel the character's pain an anguish at losing her other half. I want to cry with her because I've lost mine. But the fact that I have these emotions that she's capable of triggering them gives me hope that my writing can and will reach an agent, reach a publisher and start getting my work out there.

At work today, people who offered to read my story were discussing it and allowed me to listen in on some. The biggest compliment I received was them saying, "It's playing out like a movie in my head. I can see everything you're saying perfectly." Followed by, "I can't wait to read the rest."

Rebecca Rasmussen just put up a blog post about having heart, and sticking it out. I believe in my work. My sisters believe in my work. In middle school Mrs. Watchorn continually pushed me along with my writing. In high school people used to steal my notebooks asking "What haven't I read yet?" In college, I had people asking me to sign their copies of Zephyr. I know I am capable of writing things that reach people, that people want to read. 

So as Jay-Z told me as I opened my first big rejection letter, "You gotta get that dirt off your shoulders," and as Reliant K tells me, "I'm pressing on."